I recently returned to Saskatchewan after many years living away: across Canada and the USA, plus a few forays into other countries along the way. Ever since I re-settled I have been wondering: where is home? what is home? Does one ever find home? can one? or is this simply memory? These works on paper began to come to me in 2018, however reached their fullness in 2019.
They represent memories of life in a small farming town, through the eyes of a child, the journeys of her ancestors as they settled the land and then finally of our present day.
What is it about returning to the land of my birth? not the country but the land. These prairie horizons. sun. grasses. those winds. the prairie-raised people.
My husband says that I am different here - not the woman he has known for 35+years. What does this mean? am I?
I am not the person I was when I left those decades back. I am way more. Is it true you cannot go home again? or is it simply that you are not who you were when you left? so yes, then one cannot go home again! Is it possible also, that the one who left was left in the land and once returned that woman also returns? Who am I? and where is home then?
One answer is that home is within me. Is it? Or am I within it?
Anchored by birth. Formed by those people and experiences beyond this land. Boundaried by the self that grew up and out.
And so, we are 'Always Coming Home'.
Each piece contains a memory-story from my prairies.
